Tech startups are taking on the oil business | Hacker News Reader

Tech startups are taking on the oil business

venturebeat.com

34 pointselpeper16 comments

Anybody from Tachyus here? I've always been intrigued by the company but never really understood what form of analytics they are doing, and the descriptions are always really vague. Is it OR modeling? Data mining? Do you have any use case examples?

I hope to see intersting discussion around this article and these companies. I live in Calgary and I've always been intrigued by the gigantic oil and gas industry in my backyard. The problem is that when I look at those companies, despite their obvious inefficiencies, they are the antithesis to a typical startup. Oil and gas companies typically:

- Are run by people with no appreciation for technology (this might change in 10-30 years when these people die - I wish I was kidding in my language about death but that's exactly how people around here describe it: just waiting for the "Blue Chippers" to die off.)

- Are enterprises so deals will take forever to close

- Typically only buy software from software companies that look like them (Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, etc.)

- Toss all cost saving measures out the window as soon as the barrel price shoots back up

I think it's an interesting industry with tons of data and tons of problems that need solving but a very hard one to crack.

> I think it's an interesting industry with tons of data and tons of problems that need solving but a very hard one to crack.

I'm currently building a B2B SaaS app with the help of a small oil company and the few months I've been working and learning about the industry I've noticed it's not really different than other industries like say Healthcare (I've also built stuff for this one):

- The culture is certainly different than the IT/Internet industry, they have their own business processes, work/deal flows and idiosyncrasies but you just have to be open minded and learn.

- Loads of opportunities in IT. Small/medium improvements can be easily done in their classical processes with simple software, and this software is easily marketable to many players. They’re so caught up innovating in their core processes that they don’t have the pace in IT innovation that has for example the internet industry (where IT is actually the core process).

- Big changes most likely will find “barriers” from established players and/or regulators.

- Despite the apparent difficulty to close deals within these industries I’d say it’s actually the contrary. They love, welcome and invest in new ideas despite their lack of startup mentality.

tl;dr… like any other industry they're open to innovation, but they have their own rules

Devon is in your back yard. They are significantly invested in technology. Living in Oklahoma all the oil & gas companies here are in my experience.

Perhaps you're just ignorant to what it is they actually do in their IT departments or are only considering small companies. A field worker or landman might not know what goes on either.

I'm aware of Devon but isn't that a recent thing? And I'm guessing you're referring to their use of OpenStack and buying RHEL licenses/support? What's interesting is that several people up here have used Devon as the poster child for reserved technology practices. Encana/Cenovus tend to have the recognition of being technology forward. Maybe Devon has changed since they sold off half of their Canadian assets.

I agree my ignorance/attitude towards the industry isn't the best. I've always felt as a software startup the service companies would be your best bet.

The technology that Devon invests in is not the type that Hacker News talks about.

woo hoo! use those brightest minds to dig up more fossil fuels & inject that carbon into the atmosphere for 8 more generations to come! brilliant.

Not sure if it’s different than using the brightest minds of our generation to sell ads and contribute to build a panopticon society.

I think we've concluded in this thread that bright minds used in any significant capacity can be a dangerous threat to society at large.

Your sentiment is in the right place, but it seems distracting to bring them up in this case. :|

Then turn off your computer to save electricity and the planet!

I know you're trying to make a point, but it's poorly done.

Domestic energy use is in no way comparable to industrial use which comprises the vast majority of the contribution to global warming, specifically factory farming, heavy industry and transportation.

> specifically factory farming, heavy industry and transportation

And how do you think the device you're using to read this was built and transported to you?

You've just made my point.

A kilo of meat uses many times its weight in water, grain and fuel to produce. The same goes for many manufactured goods, my device included.

But domestic electricity usage of a computer? Yeah, that's immaterial and makes the point poorly.

The point is not that you should stop using your laptop, rather that you should not have bought it in the first place to avoid encouraging the practices you dislike. If you keep buying and using your laptop, that means you're ok with everything that went into the process of building and transporting it to you, as you're helping financing the very process you denounce. It's like buying and eating meat of protected species and saying "hey, I didn't kill the poor thing".

how do you approach oil businesses to try out your analytics or enterprise software if you haven't built one yet?

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